Three Long Beach hookah bars in one night

EXHALE’S HOOKAH WALL by ROSHEILA ROBLES
I’m too stuck-up for chewing tobacco, too reformed for hits from a bong, and cigarettes make my fingertips reek. Plus, there’s the guilt—the lowdown-dirty-smoker shame. But that all vanishes when I smoke hookah. Inhaling honey-steeped shisha from a hand-blown Egyptian water pipe feels [...]

Almaza Beer

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Lebanon is almost the same latitude as Long Beach—and it feels like there’s about eight minutes distance between Beirut and the Aladdin Café, which does pretty vigorous belly dancing on the weekends and which serves a pedigreed import beer called Almaza. Brasserie Franco-Libano-Syrienne started brewing a German pilsner of their own [...]